www.incontinentsupport.org

Sorry, but I need to vent really bad. My health insurance changed this year causing me to change pain management doctor and sleep doctor. The reason for the pain management doctor is because Oct 2007, a virus shut down my Kidney’s and caused severe bloating which tore the inside abdominal wall apart. Since that time, I have been doing physical therapy, some pain meds, and spinal nerve blocks to control the pain it causes.

The new pain doctor doesn’t like the type of treatment my original was doing there for changed my treatment. This new doctor calls my pain superficial and that I should be healed with in 4 to 6 weeks. Now only if I could believe this since it hasn’t healed yet. He put me on a lot of medication, and creams then last Tuesday I let him do abdominal injections.

I don’t know why I agreed, . I wouldn’t wish what I had done on my enemy. Not only was he using a needle for injecting medication, the needle was also hooked up to some kind of electrical device that as they turned up the power, I could feel eclectic pulses. While doing this, he was rubbing down really hard on the areas that hurt the most. Once he was done, I went to recovery where no more than 1/2hr later he came in and pushed down and rubbed that area again real hard. I told him it still hurt but the sharp tearing pain was gone.

While in the recovery area, I could hear the nurses talking. They were confused about what all the doctor did or didn’t do to me and the doctor told the nurse to contact my family doctor so he could talk personally with him. The nurses never said anything to me about this, I just over heard them talking.

Prior to this appointment the pain management doctor did a full physical on me and took my complete medical history. Along with this information, I gave the name of my urologist that is so called treating me for my incontinence along with my sleep doctor and family doctor.
During the physical the pain management doctor was doing, he asked me twice about my incontinence and I explained again I was going to a urologist and that June 3rd I have a follow-up with a special urologist at Vanderbilt.

Well my family doctor talked to me yesterday. He said the pain doctor had called him and talked with him. All the pain doctor said was that he felt all my pain was coming from a tear in my abdominal wall, (wow something we didn’t already know), he didn’t like that I had gone through spinal nerve blocks because he didn’t feel it really would or could have helped in any way. The last thing the pain doctor talked to my doctor about was my incontinence. For some reason, my pain doctor was more concerned about my incontinence then he was about how much pain I am always in.

Now I am totally lost, confused, stressed, and I can’t even say all the other feeling I am having right now. I myself am not as concerned about my incontinence as much since I have been learning how to live with it and keep my life going. The pain from my abdominal tear on the other hand really gets to me. That is something I am having problems dealing with and living with.

Why is he more concerned about my incontinence? Why can’t I be treated for what ails me and let me control what I can? When I finally am starting to handle things, something like this hits?

Again, I am sorry for posting this, I just needed someone, somewhere to vent. If any admin things this shouldn’t be here, feel free to delete, I will understand.

K.T.,

If you can get a different pain doc I would recommend you do it as soon as possable. Years ago, I had a pain doc, and I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know...... if you don't like the doc,.... don't keep thinking the situation is going to get better......get a different doc!

I've always like the type of doc that explain everything and then ASKS for any thoughts I may have about the planned course of treatment. Those few doc's I've had over the years that I didn't like from day one, the situation never got any better as time went on. If I don't like the doc, my first visit will be my last visit! I had to do this last summer to a doc I had. After my first visit I found another doc.

Johnstone,
He did talk with me before hand but he wasn't clear as to what all he was going to do. Another thing that didn't help is is accent is sometimes hard to understand. He has a very heavy Scottish accent.

Like you said, the best ones will tell you everything and then get feedback from you. One of the problems I am facing is with the new insurance, my list of doctors to choose from are very slim. What is worse, I am under my wife's insurance and she works for one of the local hospitals here.

Thanks for replying. I wasn't really expecting anyone to reply, I just needed someplace I could vent with out being judged and this board in my humble opinion is the BEST support board around!!!

K.T.,

I still think you should get a different doc. Without question,......I know I would given the same situation.